It’s easy to spot our love-handles. No problem. What’s difficult is determining the cause. Despite constant chatter from nutrition zealots about “junk”

foods and diet trends, most people remain clueless about the actual triggers behind the population’s weight-gain.

There’s certainly no shortage of fall guys for the plus sized: starch, fat, sugar (just to name a few). Pick any box in the food pyramid and you’ll find a food previously singled out as the scourge of obesity. But you won’t find an effective solution.

Because lIfestyle, not dIet, Is the maIn cause of oBesIty.

how countless daIly decIsIons contrIBute to amerIca’s BurgeonIng waIstlIneSmall choIces, BIg BodIes

Leaving nutritionists to battle amongst themselves, ordinary Americans can look to their homes and offices to find the triggers for our steady weight-gain. An inventory of our daily lives reveals thousands of seemingly small decisions that collectively explain our burgeoning behinds. Here are just a few:

the center for consumer freedom presents

• laBor savIng devIces: Appliances aren’t figure-friendly. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic cal-culated that replacing manual chores — like washing dishes, mowing the law, and cleaning the car — with their automated versions can decrease energy expen-diture from 10,500 to 1,700 calories every month. (That rate could pack on 30 pounds in one year.)

• couch potatoes & cars: We sit a lot. The average time spent watching television (1,672 hours) and the percentage of workers who commute by car (88 percent) have steadily risen over the past few de-cades. This time spent off our feet is showing up on our scales. Researchers found that for every addition-al 60 minutes per day people spend in a car, their odds of being obese increase by 6 percent.

1 hour driving per day

6% increase2 hours

12% increase3 hours

18% increase4 hours

24% increase• grIndIng to a halt: Sitting up straight, vacu-

uming the house, chewing gum, and even fidgeting are all exercise in disguise. Improving your posture throughout the day can burn an extra 350 calories. Fidgeting can give your metabolism as much as a 40 percent bump above its resting level. Researchers esti-mate that these mini-activities vary by as much as 2000 calories each day from one person to the next. But we’re simply moving less than earlier generations.

• thermostat trouBle: A human body must work to keep its temperature around 98.6°F. The farther (colder or hotter) the surrounding temperature moves from that ideal temperature, the more energy the body burns. But modern air-conditioning and heating keep our metabolisms from working too hard. One study calculated the energy difference between a climate-controlled and a mildly cold environment can be as much as 347 calories a day.

• laBorless laBor force: Studies show that every two hours spent sitting at work is linked to a 5-7 percent increase in obesity. And the American work day is increasingly spent in the comfort of a chair. The number of Americans employed in low-activity occu-pations grew from 16 million in 1950 to 58.2 million in 2000. Even changes as little as spending two min-utes each hour sending e-mails to colleagues rather than two minutes walking speak their offices can translate into more than a pound gained each year.

1900

services 25%

government 4%goods 27%

2000

services 63%

government 16%

goods 19%

agriculture 2%

agriculture 44%

Distribution of Employees in Major Industry Sectors

Risk of Obesity per Hour of Driving Each Day

The CenTer for Consumer freedom • 1090 VermonT AVe., nW • suiTe 800 • WAshingTon, dC 20005 • Tel. 202.463.7112 • fAx 202.463.7107